White Hot: A Patrick & Steeves Suspense by Kate Fargo Read Free Book Online Page A

her eye could see. There wasn’t a single building or even a tree on the horizon. “They dumped the tracking device.”
    “You think?” Dal cocked his head.
    “What other explanation could there be? I think they found the device and dumped it out in this field.”
    “So basically, the shipment we’re following is lost.”
    “Not lost exactly.”
    “They know they’re being tracked now, so we’ll have to be even more careful.” He shook his head. “So much for the element of surprise.”
    “We’ll catch up with it at the ranch,” she said.
    “Doesn’t leave me with a lot of confidence that they know what they’re doing. So much for having our backs.”
    She nodded, glanced out the window then down at the time on her phone.
    “Now what?” he asked.
    “I’ll call Bob. Then we keep heading south.”
    “Speaking of having our backs,” Dal said. “Have you reconsidered what we talked about last night?”
    “About?”
    “About what you and your father talked about,” he said.
    “There’s nothing that impacts us immediately,” she said. “Can you let it go for now?”
    His eyes narrowed. He pulled a u-turn and raced back toward the highway.

12
    L ooking into the deli case in the pharmacy, Dal picked out some ham and cheese for sandwiches and threw a couple of packages of flour tortillas in the small metal basket. They’d decided to stop for food before hitting Las Flores to avoid any chance of being recognized. Even though this town merited a dot on the map, they’d found nothing except the pharmacy. Not a taco stand, not a roasted chicken, nothing.
    Emily appeared beside him, arms laden with chips, peanuts and other salty snacks. She released them into the basket.
    “We’re in the desert, Em. We need water more than salt.”
    “Actually, we need both,” she said, grinning. “In Afghanistan, you’d sweat out most of your body fluid. The extra salt will help with dehydration. That’s why Gatorade is so popular.”
    “Hmmm. Maybe we should grab some Gatorade? And lots of water.” Turning into an aisle, he walked past packages of rice, tinned chilies, boxed milk, and picked up two four-liter bottles of water. “This should do us.”
    “I’ll grab some Gatorade from the cooler. You want anything else? Something cold?”
    He shook his head and headed toward the cashier, throwing a couple of tins of tuna into the basket at the last minute as he remembered Emily’s appetite could easily match his own.
    Em met him at the counter, set down several bottles of garishly colored liquid and tossed a couple of chocolate bars in with their haul. “For energy,” she said, winking. He reached over and squeezed her hand. Surveying the rack, she picked up a couple of packets of gum and added them to their pile.
    The young girl at the cash looked up from her phone. “ Lista ?” Dal nodded and she began ringing in their purchases.

    * * *
    “ I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry now,” Dal said, opening a large bag of chips. He held it out in Emily’s direction.
    She shook her head. “I’m good. I’ll just enjoy driving for now.”
    Stretching his legs out in the passenger seat, he cracked open a cold bottle of water and crunched on chips as the countryside whipped past them. The fields here were barren and dry. Any vegetation had long been burnt to a golden brown or dried up and blew away. It reminded him of the landscape in an old western movie. And for good reason. Many westerns had been filmed down here. He remembered his friend Kris telling him that further south, near Ensenada, there was a satellite studio where Titanic and other movies had been shot.
    Heat waves shimmered off the pavement in front of them as the truck ate up the miles southbound. North of Las Flores, traffic jammed the highway and Emily slowed, then stopped the truck.
    “Looks like an accident ahead,” she said, reaching for the air-conditioning and bumping the temperature down another degree.
    “Or a roadblock,”